Tar Sands-Free

Keep tar sands oil out of Europe

Oil from the Canadian tar sands is on average 23% dirtier than conventional oil. In 2013, the UK government will vote on European climate legislation designed to keep the dirtiest oil out of our fuel tanks.

People & Planet is uniting students from across the UK and Canada to ensure the UK government votes YES to keep dirty tar sands oil out of Europe.

Join us, by clicking on the links to the right and joining our mailing list below

Campaign Action Packs

If you want to kick-off the campaign, you can download a Fossil Free campaign action pack to start raising awareness of the issues and putting pressure on your student union and administration to do the right thing and go Tar Sands-Free!

The Alberta tar sands are the most destructive industrial project on the planet

Producing 3-5 times the carbon emissions associated with crude oil production, the industry is putting humanity on a collision course with runaway climate change – the point where damage becomes irreversible. But that’s not all! The tar sands industry is killing wildlife, destroying boreal forest and increasing cancer rates in the indigenous communities who have always lived in the area.

Far from banning the toxic fuel, the Canadian government is lobbying (with the support of the UK government) to export tar sands into America and Europe. Some of the UK’s biggest banks and oil companies are active in the industry, including publicly-owned RBS-Natwest, BP and Shell, who have thrown their weight behind the Canadian and UK governments’ lobbying.

Crucial climate legislation (the EU Fuel Quality Directive) that would keep dirty tar sands oil out of Europe for good has been fought every step of the way by the Canadian and UK governments.

Tar Sands-Free Campaign

People & Planet is campaigning to make our universities, the UK and Europe ‘Fossil Free’, and you can get involved!

Does your school, university or college bank with RBS (or subsidiary, NatWest)?

Do they receive sponsorship money from BP or Shell?

Do they receive funding or contribute their research to any of the above companies involved in the tar sands?

If so, it’s up to you and your fellow students to get them to go ‘Fossil Free’!

Want a Tar Sands-Free speaker or film night?

A group of People & Planet activists (including award-winning campaigner, Lauren King!) spent a summer with the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, a community directly affected by the tar sands industry. We teamed up with a film crew to create an exceptional documentary of their experiences called Taking on Tarmageddon. If you’d like to hold a film screening and have one of the students’ featured speak about their experiences, at your university, school or college send us an email and we can try to make it happen!

Join the Fossil-Free campaign

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“Animals are dying, disappearing, and being mutated by the poisons dumped into our river systems. Once we have destroyed these fragile eco-systems we will have also destroyed our peoples and trampled our treaty rights.”

Indigenous people in Alberta

People & Planet - UK Students campaigning on world poverty, human rights and the environment